Don't stick a fork in it yet. " Sarah Palin's Alaska " rebounded in its third week. The TLC show drew 3.5 million viewers for its third telecast Sunday -- up from 3 million for its second telecast. The premiere had pulled in 4.96 million, the best launch for any TLC series ever. The drop the second week was pretty dramatic. What could it mean? Maybe many Palin fans were away from their sets the second week. The average for the first three episodes of TLC's "Sarah Palin's Alaska" is 3.8 million.

Coaches say the darnedest things. OK, maybe it was kids. But it could have been coaches. There is something about a season's third week — maybe the tipping point aspect to it — that makes our squadron leaders so prickly and paranoid. Jimbo Fisher, Florida State: "We'll have to play a great game this week in order to compete. " Florida State is favored by 271/2 points over Wake Forest. Nick Saban, mastermind of Alabama 's 35-0 shutout against Western Kentucky , bristled, "Nobody here should be feeling warm and cozy.

The trial of David and Ginger Twitchell on manslaughter charges begins its third week on Monday. Prosecutors will continue to press their claim that the Christian Science couple recklessly caused their 2 1/2-year-old son's death by withholding medical treatment. The trial is being closely watched by the Christian Science Church, based in Boston, and by others who say it represents a conflict between religious freedom and child protection. The couple's son, Robyn, died four years ago. An autopsy revealed the boy had a birth defect that caused a blockage in his bowel.

It's called the "CityWorks (X)po" and the purpose of the 3-day conference is to share big ideas for smaller cities. Organizers announced plans for this year's conference Thursday. Topics that will be discussed include entrepreneurship, new media and leadership. Experts from a wide range of professional fields will take part. The conference will take place the third week in October at the historic Charter Hall in Roanoke. For more information, log onto www.cityworksxpo.com

The charts again belong to Whitney Houston, whose ''Greatest Love of All'' has become the third single this year to stay at No. 1 for at least three weeks.The other two members of that club are Falco's ''Rock Me Amadeus,'' which reigned for three weeks in March and April, and ''That's What Friends Are For'' by Dionne Warwick & Friends, which ruled for four weeks in January and February, until it was replaced by Houston's ''How Will I Know?''Since Warwick and Houston are cousins, that means that a member of the Houston-Warwick family has held the No. 1 spot on the singles' chart for nine of the last 20 weeks.

The third week of September was always the nightmare week. All the excitement of going back to school was gone. The new pencil box was smashed, the crayons broken. The sole had come loose on one of your new back-to-school shoes, you had an enormous inkblot in your spelling book, and they were throwing the seven-times table at you.Worse, if you didn't come down with some wonderful disease that would keep you home for months, you were soon going to face the eight-times table.Third week of September.

NASA officials on Thursday said it should cost about $2.7 million to fix a flame trench at Launch Pad 39A that was damaged May 31, when space-shuttle Discovery blasted into orbit. The launch ripped about 3,500 bricks from the east wall of the pad's north flame trench. Afterward, investigators discovered that corrosion to the structure, combined with the stress of launch, was the culprit. Repairs to the wall are expected to begin today and should finish by the third week in August, well before the next shuttle launch planned for Oct. 8.

STRIKE ENTERS THIRD WEEK. The largest wage strike ever in the country went into its third week at vital gold and coal mines Sunday with another 16,000 black miners facing dismissal and mining companies losing up to a ton of gold a day. The showdown between black workers and the white-owned companies intensified when the National Union of Mineworkers announced its members would not be cowed by a threat to carry out the biggest sacking of the dispute....

MORE THAN half a million people filed for unemployment benefits in the third week of February, marking the highest weekly rate in eight years, the government said Thursday. The report raised concern among some economists that the end of the recession is not yet in sight.

"Main Event" is joining WWE 's weekly lineup of shows, with the new series set to bow on the ION Television network this fall. The one-hour series will air on Wednesday nights, bowing Oct. 3. Show will feature WWE stars from the rosters of "Monday Night Raw" and "Friday Night SmackDown," continuing storylines from both shows and presenting bouts in front of live audiences in arenas, as its currents do now. On the eve of WrestleMania ...

NBC 's "Saving Hope" struggled in its premiere and ABC's "Duets" fell off some more in its third week, but Fox opened its dating series "The Choice" to OK numbers Thursday. The net also saw decent premiere-night scores for another premiering dating show, "Take Me Out. " Once again, cable was expected to win the night as ESPN 's coverage of Game 6 of the NBA 's Eastern Conference Finals between Miami and Boston drew Thursday's highest overnight household rating (8.2)

Fans of the 74th Modesto Junior College Tournament last December thought they witnessed the end of an era. Not so. Scrapping one of the city's signature sports events wasn't in play. What was in play was the potential finish of the tournament as a 16-team basketball festival, which is its calling card. Thankfully for the Pirates and followers of the tournament, it will be business as usual for the 75th anniversary this winter. "We will have 16 teams," said MJC coach Paul Brogan, who's coordinating the repainting of the MJC Gym floor this week.

On the heels of the $155 million domestic theatrical opening for "The Hunger Games," pic's accompanying soundtrack bows at No. 1 on the U.S. album chart this week. The Universal Republic set - formally titled "The Hunger Games: Songs From District 12 and Beyond" -- claimed the top spot with a 175,000-unit debut frame, according to Nielsen SoundScan figures for the week ending March 25. The T Bone Burnett-produced soundtrack for Gary Ross ' youth-oriented dystopian actioner, based on Suzanne Collins ' bestselling novel, features tracks by Taylor Swift , Arcade Fire , Maroon 5 , the Civil Wars and others.

ABC's ' 'Once Upon a Time' ' and Fox 's ' 'Family Guy' ' were the top broadcast draws among young adults on Sunday, a night that figured to be topped by AMC 's ' 'The Walking Dead,' ' which aired its season finale. According to preliminary national estimates from Nielsen, "Once Upon a Time" averaged a 2.9 rating/8 share in adults 18-49 and 8.6 million viewers overall in the 8 o'clock hour, growing sharply over its " America's Funniest Home Videos " lead-in (1.3/4 in 18-49, 6.1 million viewers overall)

It is fair to say that Alton Howard and Quincy McDuffie have good genes. Early into the 2010 football season, the brothers have shown the city of Orlando that there might not be a more athletic pair of siblings in the area. "Our talent is in our blood, we're both versatile," said Howard. "It's in our blood stream, we're naturally talented. " Howard is a junior versatile athlete at Edgewater High. He plays receiver, running back and defensive back. McDuffie is a sophomore wide receiver and special teams star across town at UCF. "Basically, our game plan and the way we do things is similar," Howard said.

-- The American League drew 1,139,143 fans for the week ending June 30. It marked the third week of the month that the AL topped the one-million mark. League attendnance for the 501 playing dates so far this season totals 11,382,949 -- up 795,334 or 7.5 percent from 1984.

LUCKY NUMBERS. For the third week in a row, an $8-million Lotto jackpot is on the line. And it's yours if you picked the numbers 4 11 12 19 31 40. Lottery officials won't know until today if anyone picked the numbers needed to win the jackpot. The winning number combination was drawn Saturday night.

Don't stick a fork in it yet. " Sarah Palin's Alaska " rebounded in its third week. The TLC show drew 3.5 million viewers for its third telecast Sunday -- up from 3 million for its second telecast. The premiere had pulled in 4.96 million, the best launch for any TLC series ever. The drop the second week was pretty dramatic. What could it mean? Maybe many Palin fans were away from their sets the second week. The average for the first three episodes of TLC's "Sarah Palin's Alaska" is 3.8 million.

UCF coach George O'Leary always wants to see his defense in one spot — on the sideline. The Knights' defense simply couldn't get off the field during a 31-21 loss to Southern Miss on Saturday afternoon at Bright House Networks Stadium. The Golden Eagles were 11-of-16 on third-down conversions. Southern Miss ran 72 offensive plays and UCF ran just 59. "When you have a chance to make third-down plays, you've got to make them," O'Leary said. "That is really what the difference in the game was. " It was the third consecutive week UCF's defense faced a no-huddle, spread offense.